


Plain Sailing Weather

by prydon



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Canon Divergence - Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, Juno Steel Needs a Hug, Kidnapping, Mental Health Issues, Other, Peter Nureyev Needs a Hug, They both need hugs and better communication, tbh both the archive warning and the M rating are just me being cautious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prydon/pseuds/prydon
Summary: Juno goes with Nureyev after the events of Final Resting Place- but he quickly realizes that spontaneously leaving everything he knows behind while in a really bad mental place might not have been the best decision after all.To his surprise, however...it isn't only his problems that end up catching up with them.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 78
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my longest fic yet, and it honestly took a lot out of me to write- both time/effort-wise, and emotions wise. It was also my first time writing s1/s2 Juno and my first time writing an au instead of just canon compliant stuff (I'm BRANCHING OUT!! Finally!!!!) which was a real challenge. I'm pretty proud of it though, so I hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> I also know it's a bit weird that I'm posting a multichapter all in one go, buuut...it felt too long to not split up, and I didn't want to serialize it because I wanted readers to have the happy ending available from the get-go (plus I think it vibes better when read altogether, idk) so. Here it is, in its entirety. If you still comment on the individual chapters I will literally love you and remember you forever, though.
> 
> ANYWAY...happy Juno's birthday, Merry Christmas, I love you all, and I'm sorry in advance for how sad most of this fic is haha.
> 
> CWs for this chapter:  
> \- Pretty in-depth/extensive depiction of depression and the feelings (or lack thereof) that can come with it  
> \- Brief/vague suicidal ideation  
> \- Some internalized ableism (from Juno, about his eye and his depression)
> 
> Title is from [Plain Sailing Weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8OEP8Y2DYE&ab_channel=jarogiver) by Frank Turner which, GOD, is such a Juno song.

“No one knows exactly why the water flows upside down on Baiduri, nor why it’s such a beautiful periwinkle color. There are a million hypotheses, of course, some more realistic than others. Something in the atmosphere, or about its specific gravitational pull… Some suggest the color is the result of billions of tiny parasites, the very same that make the water pure poison to so much as touch.”

Juno stares out from the resort balcony, taking in the glittering waterfalls that it overlooks. Nureyev’s voice rolls over him, only just audible over the crashing of the water.

“To think that even after all these centuries, there’s so much that humanity has left to discover. So many stones unturned, so many worlds unexplored. To think that something that can kill you with a single drop can also look this stunning…I believe it’s the closest thing the universe has to a true miracle.”

He moves his gaze from the falls to look at Nureyev instead. They only got out of bed half an hour ago, so the master thief is dressed in nothing but a sheer nightgown, his hair mussed and his face bare. His eyes are bright behind his glasses and his hands fly every which way as he talks.

Juno knows this isn’t Rex Glass, Duke Rose, or any of a thousand other personalities that he’s crafted over the years- this is purely Peter Nureyev. It’s Peter Nureyev who smiles so big that both his dimples show, who gesticulates wildly to prove his point, who loves history and archeology and could talk about them for hours uninterrupted. It’s Peter Nureyev who’s here beside him now, and who loves him.

“Ah, apologies.” Nureyev suddenly grinds to a halt midway through a second tirade about the local ecology, looking flustered. “I’ve been rambling again, haven’t I?”

Juno leans against him. “Uh-huh. But I like listening to you.”

Nureyev beams. “What do you think, then, Juno? Isn’t it just magnificent? Doesn’t it make you feel…free?”

Juno smiles back at him.

“Yeah,” he lies.

The waterfalls of Baiduri don’t make Juno feel free.

There isn’t even any naturally occurring water on Mars, but there’s so much of it here. He can find nothing familiar in this view at all, and maybe that should be exciting to him- it certainly excites Nureyev- but it just…isn’t.

Mostly, he’s struggling to feel anything at all.

He leans over the railing and tries to think _That’s beautiful,_ but instead thinks, _That’s a really long way down._

He thinks, _If I fell, I’d probably die from the poison in the water before I even died from the impact._

He thinks that should scare him more than it does.

They’re staying in the VIP suite on the top floor of the resort. Nureyev stole the identity of some diplomat or another in order to get it, and Juno is posing as the diplomat’s wife. They have new names and backstories every other week. Nureyev slips into and out of them as easily as he changes his high heels, but Juno can’t shake the feeling that no matter what clothes he wears or what alias he uses, the dead weight of being _Juno Steel_ is always around his neck.

“How about a day in, today?” Nureyev suggests, and Juno feels his shoulders sag in relief.

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” he says.

He hadn’t realized just how little he’d wanted to spend another day hiking or going to restaurants or browsing museums until Nureyev had suggested the alternative.

He likes the things they do, really. Or at least, he knows that they are objectively fun and interesting, and is grateful he has the opportunity to do them. Making all the right faces at the right times so that Nureyev knows he’s appreciating them gets difficult, though. It’s tiring.

It’s much nicer, spending the day in pajamas watching streams and eating room service with the man he loves by his side. He’s only ever done something like that with Rita before.

One of the streams they watch has a hot werewolf character in it, and he almost turns to make a joke to Rita about how she’s got a new potential girlfriend, before he remembers she’s not there. She’s a million miles away, back on Mars.

She cried a lot when he told her he was leaving, and hugged him for five minutes straight. It felt strange. They’ve known each other for a long time, of course, but he’d never really stopped to think that she might actually miss him if he left. He left her all the money in his safe, though, so she has plenty to hold her over until she can find a new job. They still talk on comms sometimes, but never for very long. It isn’t the same.

He’s pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Nureyev letting out a loud snort of laughter at something happening on the screen. He’s got a slice of pizza halfway to his mouth, and there’s still a bit of sauce left on his lip from the last one. Juno has the sudden urge to kiss it away, and realizes that he is allowed to do that. He realizes he’s the only one in the entire universe who gets to see Nureyev like this, so completely relaxed and undone, free of all the masks.

That should make him happy, right?

He knows it should, so he wonders vaguely why he instead feels like Nureyev has placed something very large, very expensive and very fragile in Juno’s hands.

Juno doesn’t think he’s ever held something like that without dropping it.

He leans over and kisses the sauce off of Nureyev’s lip, and Nureyev laughs.

He knows the question is going to come eventually, because it always does.

_“What’s wrong?”_

Or maybe,

_“Are you okay?”_

He still doesn’t know how he’ll answer it.

He smiles as big as he can manage for as long as he can, in an effort to put it off for as long as possible. He’s not used to doing that, though. His cheeks keep hurting.

Juno’s particular brand of…existence has never been to feign happiness. He doesn’t bother with that. He’ll downplay his pain, refuse to talk about it or make jokes about it to lighten the weight, but he doesn’t usually pretend it’s not there at all.

Something about Nureyev makes him want to pretend, though. He doesn’t want to hear that question from his pretty painted lips, not if he can avoid it. Nureyev is so happy with the life that they’re living. Every time he considers saying something that has any chance of dimming those bright eyes or dampening that smile, he ends up choking on the words.

But you can only hold a smile for so long before it’s just teeth.

In the end, it happens while they’re out for dinner on the jungle planet of Ġgantija. It’s a tiny café situated between the roots of one of the biggest trees in the area, and each table has a pot and burner in the middle where the patrons can mix their own stew made up of local flora and fauna.

It’s a quiet place, and they’re tucked into one of the back corners. Juno is relieved by the silence after a long day spent seeing the sights. He doesn’t really want to be around anyone at all right now, but at least there’s only one other occupied table in the café and the waiter generally leaves them alone.

They’ve been sipping their stew in a companiable silence for several minutes when Nureyev finally asks it.

It’s not quite the question that Juno was expecting, though. Even after two months seeing the stars together, Peter Nureyev still finds ways to surprise him. It’s not _‘Are you okay?’_ but-

“What am I doing wrong?”

Nureyev doesn’t look at Juno when he asks it. He just keeps staring into his bowl and gently stirring it, his expression passive.

“What?” is all Juno manages to come up with as a response.

Nureyev sighs, and it’s the worst sound Juno has ever heard. “I may not be a detective like you, Juno, but I am also not an idiot. I know you’re not happy. Please, just tell me what I’ve done wrong so that I can fix it.”

“You haven’t done anything.”

“Juno, don’t lie to me-”

“I’m serious,” Juno says. He reaches across the table and grasps Nureyev’s hands. “You…you’ve been amazing, obviously. Everything you’ve shown me has been amazing. I’m just a little…” He grimaces. “It’s a little sudden, is all. It’s a big change for me, so I need time to…adjust.”

“Mm. Of course.”

“Plus, you know things have been tough with my eye.”

It isn’t the core problem, but it certainly is one of them. His shooting isn’t the only thing that losing an eye has taken from him. He can still barely pour a drink without spilling it, or pick anything up without first grasping at air. He gets dizzy moving around enclosed spaces, and he has a constant crook in his neck from turning his head so often. Pretending everything is okay is exhausting enough on its own, but the extra strain from having to get used to a sudden and total lack in depth perception makes it much worse.

“Your eye…” Nureyev says softly. “Of course. I’m so sorry, my love. I should have realized just how difficult the adjustment would be.”

“It’s okay; it’ll just take…time.” Probably.

“My offer still stands, you know. I can get a cybernetic from my powerful friends like _that.”_ He snaps his fingers. “Just say the word, Juno.”

Juno knows full well how expensive cybernetic eyes can be, and he grimaces. “I wouldn’t want you to have to go through any trouble.”

“It’d be no trouble at all, dear,” Nureyev says, and suddenly his eyes are shining again, like Juno knows his own used to when he’d just solved a case. “I’ll talk to them tomorrow and put the order in. How does that sound?”

It sounds…good, Juno has to admit. It can’t fix his broken head, but it still might make him feel a little less useless. A little less achy and disoriented, and little better at being the partner that Nureyev deserves. When he frames it like that- as beneficial to not only himself but to Nureyev- he almost feels worthy of it. It helps that Nureyev seems so certain that obtaining such a rare, pricey item will be child’s play.

So how can he say no?

“Okay,” Juno says. “Okay, you can do that. Uh, if you want to.”

Nureyev smiles and leans forward to kiss Juno. “It’ll be like you never lost the eye to begin with before you know it, love. Don’t worry.”

They finish their dinner in silence, Nureyev looking thoroughly contented and Juno feeling…better than he felt before, he thinks. Probably. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Nureyev’s question still haunts his mind in the days that follow, though.

_“What am I doing wrong?”_

At first he’d been relieved by it, because it meant he didn’t have to lie. Nureyev _hasn’t_ done anything wrong, of course. He’s been nothing but loving and supportive during their months together, whether or not Juno deserves it. Now that Juno’s thought more about it, though…all that question has done is redouble his resolve to put on a smiling face.

Nureyev clearly sees himself as being responsible for Juno’s happiness. If Juno gets all annoying and sad, he’ll blame himself.

Juno isn’t going to do that to him, not after how much he’s already hurt him. When he closes his eyes, he can still hear Nureyev’s screams echoing, still see the bloody red burns running up his arms. The burns have healed by now, but the scars are still there. Juno pretends not to notice how long Nureyev spends in the bathroom with his scar removal gel, or the fact that he’s stopped wearing short sleeves all together.

No, he’s not going to hurt Nureyev again. He refuses to.

He’ll smile as big and often as he has to, if it means never hurting him again.

It’s not long before a date and location for his eye surgery is set. It’ll take place at a small clinic on Mercury at the end of the month.

“It’s the best eye available on the market right now,” Nureyev informs him, pacing the length of their hotel room. He pauses and looks a little ashamed. “…Second best, technically, but the Theia Spectrum is still in its beta stage, so it isn’t available to the public yet. I probably could have convinced my friends to get one for you regardless, but I wouldn’t want to risk it when its safety isn’t fully guaranteed yet…”

Juno raises an eyebrow at him. “Am I ever going to meet these friends of yours?”

His tone is light, but he’s certain he sees Nureyev stiffen slightly.

“You wouldn’t like them,” he says after a pause.

“…But you do?”

“I never said I did.”

“Then why do you call them your-”

Nureyev claps his hands together, his smile returning to his face. “Now, now Juno. That’s not what’s important at the moment, is it? You’re going to have a brand new eye in two weeks’ time! Aren’t you excited?”

Juno sinks back into the chaise longue, feeling a little put out. He _is_ excited, sure, and nervous too- but he can’t help but feel like Nureyev is looking forward to this more than he is. He tries not to read into that. He tries not to let himself think, _He doesn’t want you when you’ve only got one eye. He needs you to have both, because you’re not good enough otherwise._

He knows Nureyev would never think like that. This is the same man who helped change his bandages every day for the first month, after all. The same one who presses gentle kisses around the empty socket when they’re in bed together. He wouldn’t.

“Yeah, sure,” Juno says finally. “I mean…yes, I am excited. Thanks, Nureyev.”

Nureyev pads over to the chaise and drapes himself on Juno’s lap. He takes one of his hands and brushes his lips against its knuckles. “Anything for my goddess.”

Juno snorts. “Sap.”

“Yes, you simply bring out the worst in me don’t you?”

“Apparently.”

Nureyev settles against him, and after a few minutes he’s drifted off to sleep and is softly snoring.

Juno recalls another time that he watched Nureyev sleep, back in a hotel room in Olympus Mons.

He hadn’t wanted to be in Olympus Mons. After they escaped Miasma’s lair, he’d told Nureyev to take him to a clinic in Hyperion City for treatment. Immediately after saying it, though, he’d doubled over and clutched at his face, blood dripping down his cheek.

“Juno, please,” Nureyev had begged him, his eyes wide and desperate. “Hyperion City is hours away. You need treatment now.”

In the end, Juno was too out of it to argue further. They went to the clinic in Olympus Mons, and afterwards they went to the hotel in Olympus Mons, and it was nice. It was nice, until…

_“Call me a fool if you like, but I think I may have fallen in love with you.”_

Nureyev fell asleep only a few minutes after saying it. Juno watched him for hours. He charted every movement of his chest, catalogued every gentle exhalation. He thought about their future together.

He was going to ruin this.

He was certain of it.

 _Better to break his heart now than to break it later,_ he’d mused. But then he’d gotten up and stared out the window, and Olympus Mons stared back at him, glittering and unfamiliar.

Where else could he go?

Hyperion City was a couple hundred miles too far to walk. He didn’t have his car or the money for a cab, and he couldn’t take the Ruby. Besides…he couldn’t shake the thought that if he returned there, it would have changed without him, and suddenly it’d be unfamiliar too.

 _City’s gotta change,_ he thought. _But if it changes while you’re not in it and you never see the changes, has it really changed at all? Can’t you just hold the image you had of it in your mind forever, and pretend it’s the truth?_

_If you never go home, you don’t have to face the fact that home doesn’t exist anymore._

He got back under the covers, and stayed there until morning. He called Rita after breakfast, and by lunch she was meeting them at the spaceport to say goodbye. It all happened so fast. It had to happen fast, Juno told himself.

There was no point in lingering on a planet that had taken so much from him, and he could tell just how much Nureyev wanted to leave. He’d seen him in the hotel sink, rubbing his hands raw in an attempt to get the last of the red dust out from beneath his nails. He’d seen him slumped on Juno’s hospital bed, asleep but obviously trapped in the throes of a nightmare, soft whimpers escaping his lips and arms twitching from phantom shocks.

Mars isn’t home for Nureyev. It’s just the place where he was tortured for weeks and almost died. Juno couldn’t expect him to stay even a minute longer, so he didn’t.

What use does Mars have for a sharpshooter who can’t even shoot, anyway?

It’s better off without him. Really, he’s doing the planet a favor.

That was what he’d thought, at least. Now that he’s poised to get a cybernetic eye, though…he has to find a different excuse for leaving his home behind.

The surgery goes easily enough. Alarmingly easily, almost.

Nureyev has him send in his past medical data and a scan of his eye socket beforehand, with the reassurance that he’ll wipe their databases of any of Juno’s personal information once the operation is done, so there’s no need for any pre-surgery meetings. He just goes to the clinic, they put him under, and when he wakes up he has two eyes.

Nureyev is beside his bed again, but this time there are no nightmares, no ghosts from Martian torture chambers tugging at his body. Instead, he’s beaming. “Hello, love. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m not private one-eye anymore, at least,” Juno says, sitting up. “…Guess I haven’t been in a while, though, since I quit being a private eye- whatever.”

“It’s working, then?”

He looks around the room. After the last couple months spent adjusting to having only one eye, having two again is strangely disorientating in its own right. There’s a glass of water for him beside the bed, and when he reaches out, he grabs it easily on his first try. It’s a little thing, but…it’s nice.

“Uh-huh. Definitely working.”

The doctor talks him through all the settings and how to care for it, which is a lot of information that Juno only processes a third of. She and Nureyev disappear into a back room, probably to work out whatever deal he made to have the surgery happen so quickly and with so little paperwork, and then they’re free to go.

They walk to the hover taxi hand in hand, Juno still struggling to recognize what this actually _means._ It means no more headaches from eye strain, no more walking into doorframes, no more cricks in his neck- no more worrying that he isn’t worth anything anymore because he can’t shoot.

Nureyev is still grinning. He gently bumps Juno with his shoulder. “Now our adventure can really begin,” he says. “We never have to think about that place again.”

Juno smiles back at him and nods, but he can’t help but think there’s something wrong with that statement. He can’t help but think he lost more in Miasma’s lair than just an eye, and that whatever was taken from him then is still missing.

He can’t help but think that even the most expensive cybernetics don’t fix the way Nureyev’s hands still tremor from nerve damage, or the way he sometimes feels like he didn’t survive that room with the bomb after all and has been dead this entire time, just a walking phantom in the shape of an ex-detective.

He doesn’t say any of those things, though, because Nureyev looks so happy and he isn’t going to ruin that.

He just keeps smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs:  
> \- Depiction of depression/a depressive episode  
> \- Suicidal ideation (wrt Juno's attempted self-sacrifice in FRP)  
> \- Minor injury  
> \- Relationship conflict

Not long after the surgery, Nureyev starts disappearing.

No, disappearing is the wrong word. It implies that he doesn’t tell Juno when he’s going, which he always does. He always leaves Juno with a kiss and a time frame that he’ll be back within, which is never more than a few hours or a day at most.

When Juno asks about where he’s going, he gets a line or two about tying up loose ends.

“I’m still a thief, love,” Nureyev says. “It’s in my nature, and a career like mine…Well, it’s not without certain connections and complications. I can’t quit cold turkey just yet, or we’d never be able to afford our airfare to all these beautiful places.”

“You could take me with you,” Juno grumbles.

“And implicate you in my crimes? I think not. I think…I’ve done enough of that for one lifetime.”

“Nureyev, we’ve been through this, what happened on Mars wasn’t your-”

“Nonetheless, I would rather not,” Nureyev interrupts him. “We can have plenty of adventures together without you needing to be involved in all that, believe me. Now…I’ll see you tonight, all right?”

“…All right.”

Most of the time, Juno is fine with it. It’s almost nice, even. They’ve spent so long practically attached at the hip with no time away from each other, after all. He feels a little lost without Nureyev there, but also a little relieved. It means he can spend the time alone however he wants, and doesn’t have to put on any faces or say the right words to make sure Nureyev doesn’t worry about him.

Usually, this means taking long walks in whatever city they’re in, calling Rita or Mick, or more often than not curling up on the sofa in their current suite and watching streams. Occasionally, he’ll just sleep. He’s grateful that despite Rita’s efforts over the years, he still isn’t any good at using his comms, because it means that the times he’s tempted to look up news about Hyperion City he isn’t able to find the search bar to do so.

 _Whatever happens there isn’t your responsibility,_ he tells himself. Sometimes he even believes it.

Nureyev’s outings get more and more frequent, however, and Juno starts to wonder if there might be something more to them. He’d thought that Nureyev was enjoying their time together, but…maybe he’s getting bored.

Each planet more beautiful than the last, right?

It’s inevitable that he’ll get tired of Juno eventually. He’d just assumed that it’d take a little longer than three months.

Even he realizes that’s ridiculous, though- he knows Nureyev loves him. It’s not as though the man doesn’t make it abundantly obvious. Every time he gets home after ‘tying up loose ends’ he practically throws himself into Juno’s arms, kissing him like he’s spent all their time apart drowning and Juno’s lips are air. You wouldn’t kiss someone like that if you were tired of them, would you?

He hopes not.

One day when they’re staying on Uranus’ second biggest moon, Nureyev has to leave after dinner, and reassures Juno that he’ll back before lunch the following day.

“We’ll be together again before you know it, dear,” he breathes into his lips, and Juno can’t tell if it’s meant to be a reassurance for Juno or for himself. “I love you.”

“Yeah. Uh, ditto,” Juno says. “Be safe.”

Nureyev laughs and kisses him on the cheek, and the next moment he’s gone, vanished from the apartment they’re squatting in like smoke blown by the breeze.

Juno spends the evening lining up cans in a nearby alley and shooting them with the new blaster that Nureyev bought him- or stole for him; he can never be sure which. He hits them all easily on his first try, but he has a headache afterwards. His new eye has a lot of features that he’s still trying to figure out, and puzzling through them makes him feel as tired and incompetent as trying to work a computer does.

The bed feels too empty when he lies down to sleep in it. He hugs his pillow and turns on a mindless talk show to distract his brain. It doesn’t help much, and he spends the night slipping in and out of consciousness. In the moments that he’s awake, he feels strange and heavy, like he’s simultaneously trapped in his body and disconnected from it. He’s lived long enough with his damages to tell when things are going downhill, and he knows tomorrow isn’t going to be a good day.

He drags himself out of bed late the next morning and occupies himself by cleaning the apartment. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t theirs or that it’s hardly even dirty; he just needs something to do with his hands.

By the time noon rolls around, he’s tired and nervous and just wants Nureyev to come back. He said ‘before lunch’, and noon is lunchtime, right? So where is he?

Another hour passes, and he’s still not back.

Then another.

Juno checks his comms, but there are no new messages.

After yet another hour passes in silence, his brain starts to spin scenarios for him: Nureyev is trapped, Nureyev is dead in a ditch somewhere, _Nureyev really is tired of him and he’s gotten on the first shuttle off the planet and isn’t coming back._

The third option seems the most likely. Juno can’t imagine a world that could trap a man like Peter Nureyev or kill him, not really. Even in the tomb, the only thing keeping him there had been Juno. He _can_ easily imagine a world in which Nureyev realized he was better off without Juno Steel weighing him down and decided to leave him behind.

By the time five o’clock rolls around with no word, Juno has all but accepted that he’s gone for good. The weight in his chest and limbs has become almost insurmountably heavy. There’s nothing else to do, so he trudges back to bed and lies down. He stares at the wall without seeing it, his brain filled with a haze of static. He’s not angry. He’s not even that worried anymore, he’s just…done.

When he closes his eyes, he’s back in that room again, hearing Nureyev pound on the door. He remembers how he felt then. How…triumphant. How relieved that he could save so many people, and at only the cost of something as insignificant as his life.

He’s wanted to be done a lot of times before now, but never felt like he deserved to be. It had been the perfect opportunity, really. An excuse to just…stop, while also doing good. While also saving the entire _world._

But he hadn’t died, and he hadn’t saved anyone, and now he was just…here. A lump on the bed. A waste of a cybernetic eye.

Only by glancing at his comms does he register that another hour has come and gone by the time there’s a knock on the door.

“Love? I’m so sorry, I got a bit held up on the way, but I’m here now.”

Juno hates how relieved he is to hear Nureyev’s voice, because he shouldn’t be relieved. Nureyev shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t have come back. He should have seen his chance to run and taken it instead of staying chained to someone like Juno.

The door opens. He hears Nureyev walk around the apartment, calling his name. He should reply, but he doesn’t. He keeps staring at the wall.

“Juno? Are you here? I’ve brought takeout from that chain down the street that you like…”

A hint of fear is starting to edge into Nureyev’s voice by the time he opens the door to the bedroom.

Juno keeps facing the wall, but hears him breathe out a sigh of relief and feels the bed shift as he sits down on it. “There you are. You had me worried for a moment, Juno,” he says. “…Juno?”

A hand reaches out and shakes him lightly.

“Not that I don’t respect your decision to go to bed at 6pm, but it is dinnertime, and you ought to get some food in you.”

He sounds off somehow; slightly strained. It takes all his effort, but Juno finally manages to convince his brain to let him roll over and face him. Nureyev is dressed in the same clothes he was wearing when he left yesterday, though his suit jacket is buttoned up now. His hair is coming ungelled, his shoulders are tensed, and there’s a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead as though he’s just been running.

“Hey,” Juno mumbles.

“Hey,” Nureyev says, and smiles. Suddenly, all the strain in his voice and tension in his body vanishes. “How about coming and eating with me at the table?”

Juno knows what he’s supposed to do, supposed to say, but he’s spent so long in a haze today that he can barely remember how to. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. Suddenly all of this seems so pointless. Nureyev didn’t get tired of him today, but he will eventually. Why bother?

“No,” is all he manages to say.

Nureyev furrows his brow, his expression immediately turning to concern. “I saw the kitchen. It hasn’t been touched since I left. You have to eat, love.”

Juno just rolls away from him again, unable to look at that face anymore. Nureyev looks so confused, so _upset,_ like the idea of Juno being a useless mess is something that surprises him and not just a basic fact of who Juno Steel is. He suddenly finds himself wishing Rita was here. She’d know to expect this, and either just leave him alone or force him into watching some stupid stream with her. She wouldn’t get all weird and scared. She wouldn’t ask-

“Are you all right?”

Juno squeezes his eyes shut. What is he supposed to say to that?

_Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just refusing to eat or leave the bed for no reason. Don’t worry about it._

Or,

_No, I’m not all right. Nothing bad even happened, I just suddenly feel so awful for no goddamn reason that even talking feels like too much effort._

He compromises by saying nothing at all.

Nureyev puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it gently. “Juno, please. I just want to help. Will you look at me? Are…are you ill?”

“’M fine,” Juno manages to grunt in reply.

“Is this because I was gone?” Nureyev’s voice is tinged with nervous energy now. “I’m so sorry, love. Let me make it up to you. Come have dinner with me, and we can talk.”

“No.”

“Juno, please, can’t we just-”

“I said no, Nureyev,” Juno growls at the wall. “I don’t want to eat.”

“Then what do you want from me?” Nureyev asks desperately, and suddenly Juno feels a rush of anger flow through him.

 _It’s not always about you,_ he wants to scream. _Stop making it about you._

Instead he says, “I want you to leave me the hell alone.”

Nureyev’s hand retreats from his shoulder as quickly as though he’s been burned. When he speaks again, his voice is measured and cold. “Very well, then. I’ll just eat the takeout myself, and leave you to your…wallowing, or whatever it is you call this display.”

As soon as the bedroom door shuts behind him, Juno buries his face in his pillow and lets out a dry sob. It’s good, he tells himself, for Nureyev to be mad at him. Better for Nureyev to hate him for who he really is than love him for someone he’s not. Still, all he can feel is sick and ashamed at the thought that he’s upset him, and he spends the next few hours in a fog of self-loathing.

He’s utterly shocked when nighttime rolls around and Nureyev still climbs into bed next to him.

“Juno,” Nureyev says, and his voice is all softness again. “Can…can I touch you?”

Juno means to say no. Instead, he nods.

Nureyev’s arms wrap gently around his middle, and he presses his face into Juno’s neck. He’s changed out of his old clothes and showered, and now smells like soap and feels like soft velvet.

“I’m sorry,” he says, which is the last thing Juno expects to hear.

“For what?” Juno grumbles. “I’m the one who was a fucking asshole.”

“I got home so late, and you…you obviously aren’t feeling well. I shouldn’t have been short with you. Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

Juno lets out his breath. “That’s the problem, Nureyev. You…you need stuff to be wrong in a way that you can fix, and it’s just…it’s not like that. Sometimes I just feel bad for no reason. It didn’t help that you came home late, but…I would’ve felt bad whether you did or not.”

Nureyev lets out a small, wounded sound that Juno hates. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

“Don’t be. Not your fault. It was just a bad day.”

He knows he doesn’t sound very convincing, but it’s the best he can manage right now. To his relief, Nureyev doesn’t question him further. Juno doesn’t have to look at him to guess what expression he’s wearing right now- it’s the same one he wore after Juno told him about his brother when they first met, and again every time he was put through a particularly bad bout of experiments by Miasma. It’s a soft, pitying look, and Juno hates it.

He falls asleep still facing the wall.

When Juno wakes the next morning, it’s to find the other side of the bed empty. He can hear Nureyev in the kitchen, humming a song that he doesn’t recognize.

He sits up and rubs his eyes. He feels weak and achy, probably from how little he’s eaten the past couple of days. He slouches to the bathroom to splash water on his face and change into something semi-presentable. He wrinkles his nose as he does so, however, struck by a familiar smell lingering around the sink. It’s…anti-septic, he realizes. He knows that smell too well from the amount of times that he’s had to clean himself up with the stuff.

On a whim he checks the trashcan, and sure enough once he moves the top layer of paper towels away, he finds a blood-stained shirt and dirty bandages poorly hidden under it.

His mind drifts back to last night, to the strain in Nureyev’s voice and the sheen on his skin.

_Fuck._

He hurriedly finishes getting dressed and goes to the kitchen, where Nureyev is pouring milk into a bowl of cereal.

When he sees Juno, he smiles. “Oh, hello, love. No need to worry, I’m adhering to your rule about not using the toaster. I’m certain the owners of this humble abode wouldn’t like to come home to scorch marks on their ceiling…”

If Juno didn’t know to look for it he probably wouldn’t have even noticed, but Nureyev is definitely favoring his left side.

“What is it?” Nureyev asks, cocking his head. “Would you like a bowl too? I’m certain I can at least manage that much, but-”

“You’re hurt.”

Nureyev freezes for a moment like a deer caught in headlights, then slowly sets the milk down on the counter. “Ah,” he says. “I…should have expected no less from my dear detective.”

“Your bloody shirt’s in the trashcan. Doesn’t really take much deduction.”

“I suppose not. I’ll be burning that trash, of course, so don’t put it in the dumpster.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Juno says. “But when were _you_ planning on telling me you were injured?”

Nureyev averts his eyes. “It wasn’t my intention to hide it from you, my love, but you…you were obviously not feeling your best last night. I didn’t want to burden you further by making you worry about me.”

“What happened?”

“It was just a bit of trouble with a security guard, is all. I disarmed his blaster, but I didn’t realize he had a knife as well. It really isn’t as serious as it might-”

“Nureyev. Show me.”

Nureyev sighs in defeat and opens his robe to reveal a long, red gash crossing the right side of his abdomen. It’s clearly been treated and expertly sewn closed, but it still looks nasty, and like the blade must have cut deep.

Juno swears. Of course Nureyev had snapped at him last night. Of course Juno must have seemed pathetic and annoying for refusing to get out of bed for no reason, when Nureyev was nursing a goddamn _stab wound._

“These sort of injuries are expected to happen every now and then, in my line of work,” Nureyev says, closing his robe again. “I’m used to dealing with them myself.”

“Yeah, I…I get that. Just…be careful, all right?”

“Of course. How about I cancel my jobs for the next week? That way you don’t have to be alone again, or worry about me. Not for a while.”

Juno doesn’t know how he feels about Nureyev cancelling them on his behalf instead of for the sake of letting himself heal, but he can’t pretend that he doesn’t like the idea of them staying together. “Yeah, that’d be good. You should rest.”

They’d planned to see an art exhibition at the local museum today, but they both agree to put off that outing for the time being. Instead they settle in together on the couch for a day of reading. Juno can’t help but hear the sharp hiss of breath that leaves Nureyev’s mouth as he sits down, though he cuts it off quickly.

“How are you feeling?” Juno asks.

“Right as rain, my love,” Nureyev says. “And you? Are you feeling better than you did last night?”

“Yeah. I am.”

He’s spent a lot of time thinking he can never deserve Nureyev, but maybe they do deserve each other after all, Juno muses.

Maybe they’re a well-matched pair of liars.

Once the week is up, it’s back to travelling the stars and back to various vanishing acts by Nureyev.

That day on Uranus’ moon isn’t the last time that he’s injured on a job, and it isn’t the last time Juno finds himself barely able to leave his bed. They learn it’s usually best to just leave each other alone in those moments. Nureyev clearly doesn’t like talking about where his scrapes and bruises come from, and Juno doesn’t like trying to explain why his brain wants him to be miserable. They’re both better off not asking.

As time passes, Nureyev’s disappearances get even longer and closer together. Juno would be more worried about this being a sign that he doesn’t want them to travel together anymore if he didn’t always show back up looking drained and miserable. Whatever he’s doing, he clearly isn’t enjoying it.

Juno does try to ask him about it, sometimes. Usually he dances around or outright rejects the question, but occasionally he’ll spin a tale about fanciful ballrooms and dramatic bank heists carried out in the dead of night. The tales have enough detail that Juno suspects there’s at least some modicum of truth to them, and Nureyev always smiles as he tells them.

But you can only hold a smile for so long before it’s just teeth.

On one occasion, when Nureyev’s been gone for three days- his longest absence yet- Juno decides to call Rita. He hasn’t contacted her in weeks, so he figures it’s about time. He even finally manages to successfully use the video call option.

When she picks up, she’s practically bouncing up and down. _“Mistah Steel!_ There you are! And I can even see you! I was getting so worried cuz you hadn’t called in so long and weren’t answering any of my messages but that ain’t important now because _you’re okay!”_

He can’t help the small smile that plays across his lips. He’d missed her more than he realized. “Hey. Sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.”

“Ooooooh, your new eye looks great, boss! That’s such a pretty color!”

“Thanks, Rita.” They’d given him the full rainbow to choose from when he’d gone in for the surgery, but in the end he’d been overwhelmed by the possibilities and just asked Nureyev to tell him his favorite color. Now a lavender eye blinks out of his right socket, in contrast to the deep brown of his left. “Er…how have you been?”

This sets her off on a tangent about all the latest streams and the bizarre escapades that Frannie has been up to recently. He doesn’t process most of what she’s saying, but he enjoys listening to her talk. He sits back and lets the familiar rhythm of her voice wash over him, feeling calmer than he has in…well, in a while.

“…But enough about me, boss, you gotta tell me all about your adventures!”

It takes him a moment to realize she’s stopped talking and is waiting for him to respond. “Oh. Uh, it’s been nice. I’ve seen a lot of…places.”

She crosses her arms and pouts. “You gotta have more to say than that, boss!”

“Do I?” he says, scrubbing a hand across his face.

She’s quiet for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice is uncharacteristically serious. “Are you…safe, Mistah Steel?”

“…What? What does that mean?”

He sees her fidget in her seat. “It’s just…Mistah Nureyev seemed real nice and all, back when he was Mistah Glass and when we talked at the spaceport, but we only gotta chat for like three minutes before you left to see the stars, and I can get real protective sometimes, you know, ‘cause it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone off with somebody who ain’t good for you, so I decided to look him up just to make sure and-”

Juno’s head is spinning. “Rita…you…what did you just call him?”

“Mistah Nureyev! That’s his name, right? Mistah Peter Nureyev. He was real hard to find, I gotta say. Took me almost a whole day.”

“You…found his name.”

“Uh-huh, and a lot more. I know you like people who are kinda…tough, maybe even dangerous, but Mistah Steel, this Mistah Nureyev guy is involved in some _real_ shady business.”

“I…I already know about that,” Juno says. “I know he’s a criminal, but he’s a good person.”

She seems to chew this over before saying, “Okay, boss. I ain’t the boss of you. Ha! See, ‘cause I just called you boss-”

“I’m not even your boss anymore either, Rita.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were happy, is all, because you’re my best friend in the whole wide galaxy, even when you’re really really far away like you are now, and I want you to be happy.”

“I…” Juno’s shoulders slump slightly. “Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

“You did sorta leave behind your bestest friend and everything and everyone you’ve ever known with only a few minutes to say goodbye, Mistah Steel. I ain’t no psycholo-whatever, but I’d get it if you were a little sad.”

“I want to do this,” he says, suddenly feeling defensive. “Rita, I…I love him.”

He’s never said that out loud to Nureyev before. He’s barely even allowed himself to say the words within the confines of his own mind, but something about being face to face with this woman he’s known since he was nineteen brings them out of him.

Rita goes silent again, then says, “I know, Mistah Steel. But you can love him and still be sad.”

“Can I?” Juno says, slumping down further.

He wants to do this. He wants to be with Nureyev. He loves Nureyev. Shouldn’t he be happy, then, getting to live the life he wants with the man he loves? Why wouldn’t he be?

What’s wrong with him, if he isn’t?

His conversation with Rita tapers off not long after that, and they both say goodbye knowing full well how much has been left unsaid between them.

“You can always come back,” Rita says before they end the call. “To Mars, I mean. You don’t gotta stay away forever.”

“I know,” Juno says, but he also knows that she’s wrong. He can’t come back, not if he ever wants to leave again, and he can’t stay on Mars either, because Nureyev could never stay and he can’t leave Nureyev and-

“You might not be my boss anymore, Mistah Steel, but you can still fire me if you need to,” Rita says quietly. “You know that, right?”

Only once she says it does he realize he’s been shaking. He takes a deep breath to steady himself, and says, “Yeah.”

She opens her mouth again, but he disconnects the call before she can get any more words out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CWs:  
> \- Brief reference to drugs/drug dealing  
> \- Alcohol consumption/implied alcoholism  
> \- Relationship conflict  
> \- Mugging/physical attack and injury  
> \- Off-screen abduction  
> \- Blood

Juno had hoped that Nureyev would stop doing so many jobs soon and they’d be able to spend more time together, but he quickly discovers it’s a monkey’s paw wish. After another month of frequent disappearances, Nureyev’s jobs seem to vanish all together, but that doesn’t slow him down. Instead, it does the opposite. Suddenly he and Juno are in a different city practically every day, like vacationers on a tour-ship trying desperately to wring every ounce of money out of their overpriced tickets.

Juno can barely keep up with it all. He never even has time to learn the name of their current location before he’s being pulled along to the next by Nureyev’s manicured hand. It means they’re always together, which is nice, and it gives him very little opportunity for him to get caught up in his own head- but it’s also exhausting, and he’s spent about as much time throwing up in shuttle bathrooms as he can stand.

Today, they’re in a city on some…planet. He doesn’t know where, anymore, and he’s not even certain he cares.

It’s not as shiny and sparkling as most of the places Nureyev’s taken him to, he’s surprised to discover. What little he saw of the skyline from the shuttle, when not pointedly avoiding looking at it so he wouldn’t lose his lunch, had been incredibly beautiful. Now that they’re walking the streets to their motel, however, the place seems a lot less polished.

The sidewalks are lined with litter, many of the buildings run down or only halfway through being gentrified, and they’re propositioned to buy some strangely colored tablets twice before reaching their destination. In that one mile stretch alone, he spots four different sleezy dive bars.

The motel isn’t much to write home about, either. Half the letters are missing from the front sign, and the desk clerk greets them with dead eyes.

Juno hasn’t felt so at home in months.

“I thoroughly apologize for this, Juno,” Nureyev says as they drop their bags onto the moth-bitten queen-sized bed. “Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here by dawn tomorrow.”

“What?” Juno says. “Do…do we have to be?”

Nureyev raises an eyebrow at him. “You really want to stay here?”

“I don’t know, Nureyev. Maybe I just want to stay _anywhere_ for more than a goddamn day,” he says, more harshly than he intended.

Nureyev looks taken aback. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had a problem with our current schedule.”

“Who wouldn’t?! I barely have enough time to think. What the hell are you in such a rush for?”

“I…suppose I got overeager,” Nureyev says slowly. “There’s so much to see, and I want to see it all with you. I understand now how that might be tiring, though. I’ll try to remedy that.”

“So we’re not leaving tomorrow morning?”

His question is met with a grimace. “Love, the tickets are already bought.”

“You can just move them, though, can’t you? Get a refund?”

“I…I would rather not.”

“Of course you wouldn’t.” Juno turns away from him, his hands balling into his fists. “I thought we were supposed to be on this adventure together, Nureyev. Travelling the stars as equals. Why do I feel like I’m just along for the fucking ride?! You don’t need me. It’s not like I ever get any say in where we go or how long.”

“What? Juno, of course you do!” Nureyev says. “I’ve _asked_ you where you’d like to go before, and you said I should choose!”

He’s right, but Juno’s too keyed up to care. He’s not actually mad about Nureyev choosing their locations, anyway. He’s just…exhausted.

And a part of him is angry that Nureyev hasn’t noticed that. He knows he doesn’t have any right to be. It’s not like he’s ever voiced his concerns until now, ever said anything at all, but…is it too much to ask for Nureyev to just _figure it out?_ It’s not like he’s been hiding it very well.

“Well, I’m telling you now that I want to stay here,” Juno says. “In this city. For more than twelve goddamn hours. All right?”

Nureyev is quiet for a moment, then says, “I…I’m sorry Juno, but we-”

“We can’t. Right. Of course we can’t. Whatever.”

The next thing he knows, he’s out the door, and slamming it shut behind him. He knows he’ll feel guilty later, but right now he’s too tired and frustrated to bother.

He wanders the sidewalks aimlessly for a while, with no goal in mind other than to let out some of the pent up…whatever he’s been feeling for the past few weeks. The overwhelming smell of garbage, booze, and motor fuel that haunts the city streets is strangely comforting.

In the end, he finds himself walking into a bar with a name he can’t pronounce. It’s still covered in décor from a holiday that passed two weeks ago, and the current patrons all look like they’ve been there so long that they might as well be part of the décor themselves.

The bartender is a tall, handsome person with curly brown hair, warm eyes, and biceps of the size that Juno has always had a deep appreciation for. They already have at least three different people at the bar flirting with them, and he can’t imagine how much of that they must have to put up with every day. He hopes, for their sake, they get good tips.

He orders himself a drink and holes up in a back corner, just watching the clientele. He used to spend whole evenings like this in his twenties, throwing away hours of his life to stare at people from the backs of bars. He likes to study their clothes, body language, and the drinks they order and try to figure out why they’re there- what job they do and what life they live, that led to them getting plastered in a pub on a Sunday afternoon.

The song that’s playing on the radio is a tune he recognizes. The smell of the place is one he knows well, too, all old scotch and mildew. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine he’s back in Hyperion, not half a galaxy away.

For the first time in weeks, he feels like he can breathe.

He settles back in his chair and just takes in the atmosphere. He knows he has to return to the motel eventually, and he will, but…he needed this.

He’s only a little tipsy by the time he leaves the bar, which is exactly what he wanted to be. He slumps through back alleys for a while, still not ready to face Nureyev yet. He will be soon, but not right now.

“You’re _sure_ you don’t wanna buy?”

Juno rolls his eyes at the dealer who just appeared in front of him. It’s the same mousey, hungry looking one with the tablets who was bothering them when they first arrived. “How many times do I have to say no for you to give it up, pal?”

“Where’s your tall gentleman friend, then? He shouldn’t have let you go out on these streets all by yourself, handsome lady like you.”

“He doesn’t have to _‘let’_ me do anything.”

“I’m just sayin’. I know you’re tourists here, so you oughta be careful. Learn to read the room. Wandering this city alone isn’t always safe, you know.”

“Oh, yeah? Not safe from what?”

A crooked, yellowed grin crosses the man’s mouth. “People like me, for instance.”

Juno lets out a sigh as the man falls into a fighting stance and he catches a glimpse of brass knuckles on one of his hands. He knows there are probably ways he could talk his way out of this or run before the man can get a hit in, but he’s just not in the mood right now. “Really? Sounds like nobody ever taught you healthy ways to deal with rejection.”

“If you won’t give me money the easy way, seems like I’ll have to take it from you.”

“You’re pushing your luck, buddy. I barely have anything on me.”

“I’ll take what I can get, then.”

The man lunges at him, and just as Juno goes to move half his vision lights up red. He still manages to stumble out of the way of the brass fist, but it’s only just in time, and his head is spinning. Large text has appeared in front of his right eye, blaring, _DANGER. DANGER. DANGER._

“Thanks for the heads up, asshole,” he hisses. “I figured that one out on my own.”

The dealer looks confused momentarily. “Who the hell are you talking to?”

“My eye. Don’t worry about it. You were saying?”

He dodges another punch, and barely avoids the dealer’s foot as it sweeps under him, trying to knock him off balance. The man may not have much in size, but he’s clearly experienced. Juno curses himself for not bringing his blaster.

He isn’t so lucky when it comes to the third punch. The man manages to catch him off-guard, and the brass knuckles graze his shoulder.

 _Damage sustained. Warning. Warning. Warning,_ the text in front of his vision announces. He tries to blink it away so he can focus, but it doesn’t budge.

The dealer is faster than him, and taller, but he’s also reedy and malnourished. Juno knows he has quite a bit of weight on him, and he can use that to his advantage. He throws himself forward, hoping to shoulder check him, when suddenly the man dances out of the way. Juno tries to follow his movements but it’s all but impossible when there are words obstructing half his vision.

_Warning. DANGER. Warning. Damage sustained. Warning-_

The next thing Juno knows, the man’s grabbed him from behind by the collar of his coat and slammed him face first into the concrete wall of the building next to them. Juno can’t see anything anymore, his head exploding in pain and vision blurred, eye still screaming unnecessary warnings at him in offensively large fonts.

He stumbles away from the wall and lashes out blindly. More by chance than anything else, his fist manages to connect with a stomach. He hears the dealer cry out in pain and trip backwards onto the ground.

Juno shakes himself off. He’s won fights in worse conditions than he’s in now, and he can win this one too. He steps forward and reaches out to drag the dealer off the ground, but before he can manage it, the man’s scrambled away.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he exclaims. “I won’t bother you again!”

“That a promise?”

“Y-yes, you have my word! I won’t even look at you or your scary gentleman friend, I promise, just please don’t hit me again!”

Juno grabs him and hits him again. Just once, for good measure. Then he drops him and watches him stagger away, rambling out more apologies as he goes.

Juno stands there for a moment in the dark alley and just breathes, before forcing himself to start walking again.

By the time he makes it back to the motel, he’s tired, overwhelmed, and his head is still aching where it hit the wall. He just wants to eat something and go to sleep.

_“Juno!”_

Nureyev freezes mid-pace and runs to him as soon as he opens the door. His face is drawn, eyes laced with guilt and fear, and Juno hates that he’s the reason for that expression.

“There you are, love. You didn’t pick up when I called you,” Nureyev says frantically. “This is a dangerous city; I was afraid something happened-”

“Not like dangerous cities are exactly new to me, Nureyev,” Juno mutters. He tries to push past him, but suddenly Nureyev’s hands are on his shoulders.

“You’re bleeding,” he says, fingers moving up to brush the cut on Juno’s forehead. “Something did happen.”

“I’ve had worse, trust me. Don’t worry about it.”

“Who did this to you?”

“It was just some mugger, okay? I can clean it up myself.”

“Please, Juno, let me help-”

Juno lets out a harsh laugh. “Really? This coming from _you,_ the person who comes home with broken ribs every other week but won’t even tell me why? Don’t be a hypocrite, Nureyev. It’s not a good look on you.”

Nureyev’s expression turns stony. He slowly lowers his hand and lets Juno shoulder his way through to the cramped restroom.

Juno rinses his cut in silence for a moment before he hears the sound of someone leaning against the door.

“I…I thought about it while you were gone, and you were right,” Nureyev says softly from behind it. “You’re right about me being a hypocrite, too. I haven’t been fair to you. We should talk. About…well, about a lot of things, I suppose.”

Juno doesn’t really feel like talking right now. He stares at the mirror, his temples throbbing. The pain in his head is only exacerbated by his cybernetic eye, which is now running what appears to be a set of diagnostic information in front of his vision. He shakes himself, trying to get it to stop, but the text is still there, its ugly font piercing into his brain-

 _“Goddammit!”_ he swears and slams his hands against the sink.

“Juno?!” Nureyev exclaims. “Juno, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Leave me alone.”

“Juno, I’m coming in.”

“Nureyev, don’t-”

Before he can stop him, Nureyev has opened the door and is rushing to his side. “Love, please. That cut looks bad. Just let me help you.”

“It’s not the cut,” Juno growls. “It’s this goddamn _eye.”_

“Is…is there something wrong with it? It’s on a warranty, so if you need repairs-”

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with it. It just won’t shut the fuck up. How the hell am I supposed to read everything it throws at me and remember a million freaking settings? I just want to _see._ It gives me worse headaches than the damn eye strain did.”

Nureyev frowns. “It’s a top of the line cybernetic, Juno.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure. It’s fancy. Fancy things aren’t always _good,_ though. Just because some big shot company decided to add a thousand extra features that don’t even matter so they can justify getting more money out of people, doesn’t mean their work is above criticism. It’s like those damn luxury hovercars that Rena Corp is always selling to clueless rich assholes in Minerva Heights.”

He’s startled out of his tirade by a dark look passing Nureyev’s face. When the man speaks, it’s with the carefully level voice Juno knows he only uses when he’s genuinely angry. “Really, Juno? After the trouble I went through to get you that eye, you’re really going to complain that it has _too many_ _features-”_

“I never asked you to get it for me!”

“You were miserable before you had it!”

_“I’m miserable now, too!”_

They both fall silent, chests heaving and eyes fixed on each other. Juno swallows, already regretting the words that just slipped out of his mouth.

When Nureyev speaks again, it’s in a quiet, injured voice. “Juno…”

“Fuck, I don’t…I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did.” Nureyev pushes his glasses onto his forehead to rub his eyes, and only now does Juno realize just how exhausted he looks. His dark shadows must be as prominent as Juno’s, if not worse. “Juno, I thought you wanted this. You _said_ you wanted this.”

“I did,” Juno says. “I…do.”

“It doesn’t seem like it to me.”

“Do _you_ want this? First you kept disappearing for days on end, and now you can barely sit still.” He’s been so caught up in his own head that he barely noticed, but now that he’s thinking about it…he can’t remember the last time Nureyev seemed genuinely happy, either.

“Of course I want this,” Nureyev says through gritted teeth. “You can’t even begin to fathom how much I want this, or how hard I’ve worked to have it.”

For a moment, he is all tension and sharp edges and open wounds, and Juno isn’t sure whether he wants to run away from him or kiss him. The next he’s slumped against the bathroom door and letting out a tired sigh. “I’m sorry, Juno. Can we talk about this tomorrow? We’ll have plenty of time to discuss the future on the shuttle off planet.”

“Right,” Juno says, unable to keep a note of bitterness out of his voice. “Because we’re leaving first thing. Guess there’s still no chance of getting an extension on that, is there?”

“Juno…”

“Forget it.”

Nureyev finally takes the hint and leaves the bathroom. Juno finishes cleaning up and bandaging the cut by himself, then takes a long, near-scalding shower. When he emerges, it’s to the smell of egg rolls and cricket pad thai, which Nureyev apparently ordered while he was showering. It’s traditional trashy Martian comfort food, and Juno knows he bought it on purpose, probably in an attempt to make Juno feel better.

Nureyev is too good to him, as always.

They eat without talking, only the hum of the radiator and the buzz of a stream playing in the room next door to break the quiet. Juno is used to comfortable silences with Nureyev, but this one doesn’t feel particularly comfortable. It’s a relief when it’s finally late enough to justify going to bed.

They say goodnight and kiss like they always do, but something about it doesn’t feel the same.

Juno watches Nureyev sleep.

Usually they go to bed entangled with each other, one lying on top of the other or curled in the other’s arms. This time there’s as much distance between them as the small bed allows, and Nureyev is facing away from him. He can’t tell if it’s because Nureyev wants space or because he’s assuming Juno wants space, but suddenly the half a foot of empty sheets between them feels like it might as well be a thousand miles.

He remembers their cell beneath the surface. He remembers lying next to Nureyev on the cold, stone floor, and wanting nothing more than to have this: to be beside him in a real bed. To travel the stars at his side. That future had seemed so bright, then. Impossibly bright.

Now he has that future.

If he’d never gotten it…would it still seem bright? Could he still fool himself into believing that it’s possible for Juno Steel to be happy?

Because it has to be impossible, doesn’t it? If he can’t be happy here, he won’t be happy anywhere. With anyone. This is proof of that.

Nureyev shivers in his sleep, the motel’s bad ventilation and his bad circulation clearly an unfortunate combination. Juno wants to reach for him and wrap him in his arms, so he never has to feel the cold again. He can’t, though, because if he does he’ll never let go.

He has to let go.

He can stand being miserable. Hell, he’s stood it for the past 38 years. What he can’t stand is hurting Nureyev with his misery, and knowing that the man’s eventually going to get tired of it and give up on him. He hasn’t given up yet, but it’s obvious that he’s close. For all Juno knows, tonight was the final straw. Tomorrow Nureyev will realize he’s tired of trying to help someone who can’t be helped, tired of jumping through hoops to make someone incapable of happiness happy, and he’ll leave.

And he’ll be right to.

Nonetheless, selfishly, Juno doesn’t want to watch him go.

Just like he could believe in a future where he was happy traveling the universe with Peter Nureyev up until he got it, he can believe in a future where Nureyev won’t leave him until the very moment he walks out that door. He can believe that maybe things could’ve worked out, and they could’ve been together forever after all.

He just has to walk out the door first.

His clothes are still thrown over the chair next to the bed. He slips out from under the covers as quietly as he can, and pulls them on. His movements are slow and mechanical. He simultaneously feels more like himself and more disconnected from himself than he has in months.

As he walks to the door, he hears the soft sound of rustling sheets behind him.

A voice, half-asleep, mumbles his name.

He pretends not to hear it.

“Oh. Hello again. No offense, but you look like hell, lady.”

Juno doesn’t bother replying to that. He just slumps over to the seat at the very back of the bar and sits down. “Give me a pint of the strongest whiskey you’ve got.”

The bartender raises their eyebrows. “One of those nights, is it? Drinking to get drunk, not to have a nice time?”

“I’m paying for the pint, not a goddamn commentary track.” He pulls some loose bills out of his pocket and slams them on the table. “Just give it to me.”

They shrug and take the creds. “You know, most people are paying for both. I’m guessing you’re not here to spill your life story so I can commiserate, though.”

“Not really.”

“Hey, no complaints from me. You hear enough sob stories from cheating old bastards about how their spouses found out what was happening and left them and they all start to sound the same.”

He stays at the bar for hours, not drinking himself into oblivion but drinking enough to at least dull the edges of twisting vortex of self-loathing raging inside of him. At one point, a pretty woman with long braids walks up to him and offers to buy him another glass.

“You can if you want,” he says without looking up from his current one, “but you won’t get anything out of it. I’m taken.”

It’s only after she’s made some comment about being unlucky and walked away that he realizes it was a lie. He’s not taken, is he? Not anymore. He snapped that particular thread with his own two hands.

He keeps one line in his mind, and repeats it like a mantra:

_He’s better off without me. He’s better off without me. He’s better off without me._

Each planet is more beautiful than the last, and each person is more beautiful than the last. Peter Nureyev will find someone better than Juno Steel easily, because there aren’t many people in the galaxy who aren’t better than Juno Steel. He’ll find someone happier, more appreciative, more suited to a life spent jet setting through the stars…

Someone whose heart isn’t buried in the dust on Mars.

It’s only when he notices the sun coming up outside the windows that he realizes how long he’s been sitting at the bar. “…How long is this place open anyway, barkeep?”

They laugh. “It never closes. All the bars in Tethys serve alcohol at all hours.”

Tethys. So that’s the name of this city. It’s good to know, since he’ll be leaving it soon enough. He reaches for his comms to search for the next flight from Tethys to Hyperion, when he realizes something rather problematic.

He doesn’t have his comms.

In fact, he doesn’t have anything besides the clothes on his back. His comms, wallet, fake IDs and passports, and all the rest of his belongings are back in that motel room with Nureyev. What little loose change he had in his pockets was just spent on booze. He has nothing.

He can’t leave.

Even worse: he can’t leave _unless he goes back there._

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the bartender says, leaning on their elbows. “What’s got you so spooked? The realization that you just spent the whole night alone in a bar not even talking to anybody?”

He doesn’t reply.

His brain is running a million different options through his mind, some of which involve asking the bartender for a job at the bar and working for them until he has the money to buy a new comms, just to avoid going back to that room.

He knows he can’t, though. If he believed in karma, he’d believe this was it: this was the universe punishing him for thinking he could walk away that easily from something that important.

He’ll go back.

First, though, he’ll order another drink.

When Juno finally arrives at the motel, it’s several hours past the departure time for his and Nureyev’s tickets.

He doesn’t know what he’s hoping to find there. Is he hoping that Nureyev’s already left, taken the shuttle as scheduled and vanished back into the stars where he belongs? Is he hoping that he’s still there, so Juno can lie and say he just went for a walk and they can both go back to pretending it’s all okay?

For a second he’s frozen with his hand poised above the doorknob, thinking of cats in boxes that are both alive and dead. Motel rooms that, for the moment, can be either empty or occupied. Master thieves that he will see in one moment or never again.

A voice from another life plays in his mind.

 _“I’m telling you, Super Steel, it’s the best way to figure out what you_ really _want when you have to make a tough decision.”_

_“Seriously, Ben? You’re worse than Mick. It’s not like ‘flip a coin’ is actually a brand new idea. And how does that help me figure out what I want? It just leaves it up to chance.”_

_“Nope, ‘cause once the coin lands, you’ll know. If it lands on the option you really want, you’ll be relieved. If it lands on the one you don’t, you’ll be disappointed. You’ll find out how you feel based on your own reaction to the result. Works every time, I’m telling you.”_

Only trouble is, by the time Juno opens the door and sees the result, it’ll be too late for him to do anything about it.

Only trouble is, Benzaiten’s method doesn’t account for what Juno does feel when he opens it and finds the room totally empty, which is some burning cocktail of _both_ relief and disappointment.

As he steps inside and turns on the light, however, those feelings are replaced by an even more potent one:

_Fear._

He’d hoped that Nureyev had left Juno’s things there for him to pick up, and he had. It’s not only Juno’s belongings that are still lying on the bedside table, however. All of Nureyev’s are still there, too. He might have assumed that Nureyev was just out for breakfast for gone on a walk, but as soon as his eyes sweep the room, he knows it’s not that simple.

He’s been to enough crime scenes to know what ‘signs of a struggle’ look like, and there are dozens of them here.

One of the chairs next to the small table is overturned, and the table itself knocked out of position. The painting on the wall is crooked and the ragged carpet is bunched up strangely, revealing scuff marks on the sim-hardwood beneath it. The wallpaper next to the door has long scratch marks ripped through it, as though…

…As though it was scratched by someone wearing sharp acrylic nails. Someone wearing sharp acrylic nails who was very, very desperate.

Juno steps into the room, trying to think through the sound of his heart pounding in his throat. He forces himself to turn off the part of him that is terrified for the man he loves, and turn on the part that has been trained to observe and piece together clues.

There was a fight, obviously. By the looks of it, there were at least three attackers. Possibly four. _Four on one, that’s not fair, but of course they’d need four people if they wanted to stand any chance of beating Nureyev-_ no, he can’t think about that. He doesn’t know Nureyev, doesn’t know the person staying in this room. All he has are the clues.

Three or four on one. Scorch marks on the left wall indicate the attackers had blasters. The bloody knife on the floor belongs to the owner of the room- _it belongs to Nureyev, who would never have left it here if he had a choice-_ Focus. Nothing in the room has been stolen. Both of their wallets are still there, as well as their fake IDs and three sets of comms- _three sets of comms? There should only be two, his and Nureyev’s, why does Nureyev have another-_ and all of their clothing and jewelry. The attackers weren’t burglars or muggers _and_ _Nureyev wouldn’t have left so much potentially incriminating information either, not if he could help it. Not unless he had to run before he could grab anything, or was taken by force._

He forces himself to breathe. He has to talk to the motel owner. Maybe they saw Nureyev leave, or who he left with. Maybe there are security cameras. Maybe he only just missed the fight, and they’re still close enough that he can hail a cab and chase after them.

Then he turns to face the door he came in through, and sees the arching splatter of blood beside it for the first time.

The blood’s color indicates that it’s been drying on the wall for at least an hour, and its size…

Its size indicates that whoever lost it can’t be doing very well right now.

He allows himself a moment to let out a strangled sound of grief, rage, and fear, and slam his fist against the motel door. Then he allows himself another, to let the hot tears run down his face as his eye spits out text about how his heartrate is too high and he ought to see a doctor.

Then he gathers himself up and makes a plan.

_Check to see if any people or cameras saw him leave, and with who._

_Case the room again._

_Call Rita._

_Find Peter Nureyev, no matter what._


	4. Chapter 4

To Juno’s immense relief, Rita picks up on the third ring.

She’s dressed in her rainbow tie-dye footie pajamas, her frizzy hair is sticking out of its nightcap, and she has to scramble for her comically large glasses before squinting at him through the screen, an affronted pout on her lips.

He’s never been happier to see someone in his life than he is to see her right then.

“Mistah _Steeeel,”_ she groans. “Not that I ain’t happy you called, because it has been ages and you really oughta call your best friend more often, but it’s four in the morning here and I gotta get up at seven to watch the holiday rerun of _Krampus in Love_ -”

“Rita, I need your help,” Juno says.

She blinks at him for a moment, like she’s only just now registering his appearance. He doesn’t know what he looks like at present, but he can’t imagine it’s good. “Oh, boss. This is serious, ain’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Well, good thing you have your old pal Rita to help you out! You did the right thing, coming to me!” she says, then gasps. “I’ve got it! You’ve been watching the news, haven’t you? The Hyperion news streams? I bet you saw all that stuff about the new mayor and his plan for Oldtown and you thought it seemed as shady as I did-”

He frowns. “…What? Rita, no, this is about Nureyev. Something happened to him.”

“Oh.”

“Wait, what was that about Oldtown-”

“Never mind about that! Forget I said anything!” she says, plastering on a bright smile. “If your boyfriend’s in trouble of course I’ll help, Mistah Steel.”

Juno feels himself deflate slightly. “He’s not my boyfriend. Not…not anymore. I walked out on him, and when I came back…he was gone. There’s blood. Signs of a struggle. Security cameras picked up nothing, and no one saw him go. _Fuck.”_ He slams his fist against the table. “This is all my goddamn fault. If I hadn’t fucking abandoned him I could have protected him, but now someone’s got him and I don’t know who or where he is-”

“You think he was kidnapped,” Rita says, nodding. “Are you sure of that, though, boss? What if he won the fight and then just…left?”

“I considered that, but…all his stuff is here. His clothes, his fake passports…personal stuff. Incriminating stuff. His comms, too. Both…both of them. His regular one and a burner I didn’t even know he had.”

“I told you he was involved in some shady business, Mistah Steel,” Rita says seriously. “Maybe some o’ that business finally caught up with him.”

Juno hesitates, then says, “Rita…when you looked up Nureyev, what did you…see, exactly? What do you mean by shady business?”

“I mean exactly that! Shady business _es!_ He’s been involved with several of ‘em over the past couple decades.”

“Like…what?” Juno knows that Nureyev’s worked for a lot of different people, and not all of them good, but for some reason the thought of him doing jobs for corporations is surprising.

“Hold on, gimme a sec and I’ll pull the data up for you…”

Suddenly, pages upon pages of information are appearing on his comms screen. He grimaces, reminded of the overwhelming features on his eye. He tries to sort through it, squinting at the articles and webpages one at a time.

It…doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

No corporations are particularly trustworthy, he knows, but these ones are notably bad. They’re the variety that bulldoze natural landmarks to build fossil fuel plants and hike up medication prices until it’s impossible for common people to afford treatment. They’re nasty, heartless, and…dangerous.

He knows Nureyev has worked for bad people before. Hell, he worked for Miasma. But he hadn’t known what she was planning, and the moment he learned, he turned against her and tried to take her down. There’s no way he could work for these corporations without realizing they’re bad eggs, though. Most of them aren’t even trying to hide it.

So…why? Is the payout really that worth it to him?

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Juno says quietly.

“Mistah Steel…no offense, but how well do you actually know Mistah Nureyev?”

“I…we…We’ve been together for over half a year now, Rita. Of course I know the damn guy.”

 _I’ve been inside his brain,_ he doesn’t add. The more that he thinks about it, though…Nureyev was only seventeen when everything happened on New Kinshasa. The boy that Juno had seen in his memories was scared, driven, and had a good heart. But…

It’s been twenty years since then. Nureyev could have done anything, _been_ anything, in between now and then.

Rita is quiet, watching him through the screen with big, sympathetic eyes. Then she says, “There’s something else, too.”

“What?” Juno asks roughly.

“The only thing I can find that links any of these companies is a big transaction right at the time of Mistah Nureyev starting to work with them.”

“Well, yeah. They must be paying him, right?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. That’d be a simple money wire, but this…it’s like he’s selling them something. I donno. It’s real hard to puzzle out. Whatever it is, it’s encrypted like a bajillion different ways.”

“What? What the hell could that mean?”

“I donno, boss! That’s what I’m trying to figure out! I didn’t pry too deep before ‘cause I didn’t wanna be too nosy, you know, since he is your boyfriend and all, but-”

“Pry as deep as you want,” Juno says quietly. “He’s…he’s gone. If this can give us any clue into where he is, it’s worth looking into.”

They have to look. He’s a detective, which means he has to find all clues possible to solve the case. Even if he doesn’t want to, even if he’s worried…worried that…

_Afraid you might find something you couldn’t forgive?_

Nureyev’s voice echoes in his mind. He shakes it away. What matters right now is that Nureyev needs his help. If he’s up to something unforgivable, they can deal with that later. Besides…Juno already walked out. Nureyev definitely already hates him. This isn’t about saving their relationship, it’s about saving his life, and whatever Rita is going to find…he doesn’t think anything could ever be so bad as to make him believe Peter Nureyev deserves to die.

There’s quiet for a long time as Rita taps away on her computer and Juno sinks further and further down in his seat. He can’t stop staring at the blood on the wall in front of him, and hoping it belongs to Nureyev’s attacker, not him.

It’s _so much_ blood.

“A-ha!” Rita says, and Juno would know that triumphant tone anywhere.

“You found something,” he says, leaning forward eagerly.

“Uh-huh! I found the transaction number for whatever these places are buying from or selling to Mistah Nureyev!” she says proudly. “Only, hold on…52775629811023817…I’ve seen that number before.”

“…You can recognize a number that long?”

“Obviously, Mistah Steel, don’t interrupt. Yeah, see, I was right! It’s the same number I found that gave me access to Mistah Nureyev’s name and information!”

She screenshares her computer, and suddenly his comms is filled with a passport photo style image of Nureyev. He looks significantly younger, his face free of glasses or makeup, and his eyes…his eyes are emptier than Juno’s ever seen them.

Beneath the photo is a line that reads _Name: NUREYEV, PETER,_ followed by a row of symbols that Juno guesses is the name in its original Brahman.

It’s followed by a block of text giving Nureyev’s date and place of birth, height, weight, blood type, and every other bit of personal information that he can think of. Juno stares at it, wide-eyed.

“I thought he kept this stuff hidden from…everyone,” he says. _Everyone but me._ “He’s really just handing it over to whatever corporation he makes a deal with!?”

“You’re right that it don’t make sense, Mistah Steel. Especially ‘cause this is all I can find of the transaction. There ain’t nothing else attached, like…” she trails off. “Oh.”

“…Like?”

“Like this is the only thing that’s getting exchanged,” she says quietly. “I…I know what this is.”

He doesn’t even remember the last time he saw her look so upset. Maybe when he was poised to walk away from her in the spaceport. “Rita, what is it?”

“It ain’t Mistah Nureyev that’s buying or selling nothing to these corporations, boss. It’s…Mistah Nureyev that’s _being_ bought and sold by them.”

He stares at her. “What?”

“This is a debtor’s tag.”

“…What does that mean?” Juno says, but as he stares at the photo of Nureyev and all the information given underneath, he feels a sickening understanding start to creep into his mind. “Rita. What the _hell_ does that mean?”

“Well, it means he’s in some kinda debt, Mistah Steel,” Rita says. “Real, real bad, by the looks of it. Millions and millions of creds. So, uh, whatever company buys this tag, buys his debt…”

“And therefore buys him,” Juno finishes for her. _“Fuck.”_

“Technically, it ain’t like they own him for real. But it does mean he’s gotta pay ‘em if he ever wants to get out of debt, and if they ask him to do something for ‘em…Well, he’s probably gonna do it, because otherwise they can add to his debts or sell them to someone worse, or…bad stuff like that. And you said he’s hiding his name for a reason, so if they have it-”

“They can also use it as blackmail,” Juno says. “Goddammit. This is all so fucked.”

Rita shuffles in her seat. “He never told you?”

“He didn’t tell me a goddamn thing. Fuck, Nureyev, you idiot. Why didn’t you say something?” Juno says through gritted teeth.

His mind is whirling. He’d been so scared that whatever Rita found would change his image of Nureyev forever, and it has. Just…not in the way he expected. That carefree thief, happy to travel the stars and free to move as he pleased _was_ a lie, but the man behind the mask isn’t some evil capitalist hitman either.

He’s scared and trapped, stuck under the thumb of a crushing weight he can’t escape. A crushing weight that apparently just came down on top of him.

Juno's eyes return to the blood on the wall.

“Do we know what corporation has his debt right now?” he asks quietly. “That must be who took him.”

Rita nods. “I think you’re right, boss. I’ll check.” She types away for a moment, then says, “Got it.”

“Already?!” No matter how long he knows Rita, he’ll never stop being impressed by her.

“Vedas Corporation. They’re a nuclear fuel company.” More typing, and then, “I just broke into their servers to check, and it looks like he got behind on his payments to them. There’s…there’s a company-wide call for his capture and detainment. Has been for weeks.”

“There’s the culprit,” Juno says meekly. Then… “Wait, _weeks?”_

“Uh-huh.”

“I…that’s why we kept moving from place to place so quickly. He was running from them.”

“It’s kinda amazing that he got away from them even as long as he did,” Rita says, pushing her glasses up on her nose. “Considering what they got on him. I donno if he even knows about it, ‘cause it says here it was implanted _‘in confidence’_ during a routine checkup by one of the corporations, but…there’s a tracker in him.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nuh-uh, boss. There’s code for how to access it encrypted in the debtor’s tag. Wherever he goes, they just need a day to triangulate it, and they can find his location. He never coulda run forever.”

“And that’s why we needed to leave this city by dawn,” Juno realizes. “Even if he didn’t know why, he knew they could find him if he stayed anywhere for longer than a day. So…why the fuck didn’t he leave this morning like he was planning to?!”

He feels like he’s going to be sick. He gets up from his chair and paces the room, forcing himself to breathe even as his hands curl into trembling fists.

“Goddammit, Nureyev,” he mumbles. _“Why didn’t you just leave?”_

“I know it don’t sound like it, boss, but this is good news,” Rita says. “The tracker, I mean.”

He whirls back to face his comms. “How the hell is him having a goddamn chip in him _good news?”_

“Because they ain’t the only ones that can track it. I can, too.”

That stops him in his tracks. He blinks. “Really?”

“Of course, boss! You oughta know better than to underestimate me by now.”

He dares to feel hopeful for a moment, but then another thought comes to him. “You said it takes a day to triangulate the location. They…they’ll probably have killed him by then, if they don’t think they can get any more use out of him.”

She wags a finger. “I never said that.”

“You literally just-”

“I said it takes _them_ a day to triangulate the location. It’ll take _me_ about two hours and eight bags of salmon crunchies, so you better call a delivery drone to order those for me stat.”

Juno all but collapses back into his chair. “Rita…where would I be without you?”

“Still on the street where you were after the HCPD kicked you out, probably,” she chirps. “I am here, though, so there ain’t no point thinking about what ifs. Now, let’s find your Mistah Nureyev.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CWs:  
> \- Serious physical injury/battery  
> \- Blood  
> 

Juno crouches in the shadows on the maintenance lift, blaster trained in on his target from two dozen feet above them. His heart is racing, but he’s determined, eyes locked in place and hands steady. The drive and adrenaline are familiar, and bring back memories of dozens of risky cases and dramatic busts at the HCPD. It’d almost be nice to feel that rush again, if not for the identity of the person that his target currently has tied to a chair and is beating the shit out of.

Rita was able to track Nureyev’s chip to a ship en route to a satellite circling Jupiter, and from there Juno had used up nearly all of his emergency savings to buy out every seat on a shuttle at the Tethys space sport and demand that the pilot, quote, “Follow that ship.”

Rita had nearly exploded from excitement when she’d heard that over comms, and the pilot begrudgingly agreed, citing that he didn’t get paid enough to care anyway.

The satellite is little more than a floating nuclear power plant, with a few Vedas administrative offices and storage buildings there for good measure. When Juno arrived, he followed Rita’s directions to one of the latter, where he is now.

And where Nureyev is currently tied up and being beaten to death.

The man doing the beating is small and wiry, with a shock of ginger hair. From what Juno can tell from his vantage point, he isn’t even wiry like Nureyev is wiry- all lean muscle and deceptive strength. A gust of wind could probably blow this guy away. There’s no universe where he could overpower someone like Peter Nureyev or successfully make so much as a mark on his skin.

Except for this one, of course, in which Nureyev is firmly tied down and clearly already incapacitated from an earlier injury.

No, even now, even in the state he’s in…Nureyev should be able to take this man. He should be able to slip out of the ropes binding him and get away. _This_ shouldn’t be enough to hold the master thief who’s escaped a hundred prisons and evaded capture for two decades.

It is, though. It is, because with the help of his cybernetic eye, even from this distance Juno can see the downward slope of Nureyev’s shoulders and the emptiness of his gaze.

This isn’t him being overpowered. This is him having given up.

The ginger haired man’s voice echoes through the cavernous storage container as he laughs. “You really thought you could get away with screwing _us_ over? Some master criminal you are.”

He draws back his hand and then whips it across Nureyev’s face. Nureyev’s head stays bowed for a moment before he spits out blood and readjusts himself. He says something, then, but it’s too quiet for Juno to make out.

Whatever it was, it just makes Ginger laugh harder. “Don’t worry, I won’t play with you much longer. Not now that I’ve got word from the big guy that I’m free to kill you. See, we’re pretty certain that you’re never going to be able to pay off that debt of yours, which means…we can just kill you and sell your corpse to New Kinshasa. They’ve put a high price on your decapitated head, you know.”

Nureyev stiffens slightly at the mention of New Kinshasa, but still doesn’t retaliate, eyes fixed on the concrete floor.

Juno’s fingers tighten on the trigger of his blaster, his hand trembling with rage.

“Rita, how much longer on those security cameras?” he says into his comms.

“Two minutes,” she replies. “I just need two more minutes and I’ll have them on a loop, boss!”

“I can’t afford to wait two minutes.”

“You _gotta_ , boss. They got dozens of guards looking at those cameras right now, and if you shoot Mister Asshole Guy right in front of ‘em there’s no way you and Mistah Nureyev can make it off the satellite alive.”

“If I sit around much longer, Nureyev won’t be getting out of here alive _anyway.”_

“Two minutes, Mistah Steel!” Rita insists, and then the line goes silent.

Juno swears. “Fuck. Fuck, just hang in there, Nureyev. Please.”

“You know, I thought for certain you’d lost it when you took out that million cred loan for a cybernetic eye,” Ginger is crooning. “I said, even _he_ wouldn’t be such an idiot as to buy a luxury like that when he’s already making his payments weeks late, and now…”

He reaches forward and tilts Nureyev’s chin upwards. “…Now I come to find you with two organic eyes. So not only did you default on your payments over a luxury, but it was over a luxury for _somebody else._ That’s really something, Peter. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Juno feels like he’s going to throw up.

A memory plays in his mind of a smile and a snap of the fingers. _I can get a cybernetic from my powerful friends like that. Just say the word, Juno._

“You liar,” Juno whispers. “You fucking liar.”

For the first time since Juno got here, Nureyev looks defiant instead of defeated. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he growls.

Ginger crosses his arms. “Understand what? Oh, you’re not going to give me some pathetic speech about _love,_ are you? I thought you were better than that. Whatever happened to always working alone?” he says. “Then again…my associates informed me that you were alone when they arrived to pick you up. Where was your cyber-eyed beloved, then? Sounds to me like you made a bad investment. You- _augh!”_

Juno’s at the wrong angle to see it happen, but he can guess from Ginger’s reaction that Nureyev just spat in his face. He might have smiled at that, if he wasn’t so busy feeling sick with fear and rage.

“I didn’t,” Nureyev rasps.

“You little bastard,” Ginger says, wiping at his face. “That’s it, you’re dead.”

_“I didn’t make a bad investment.”_

Juno doesn’t know how Nureyev can say that, after Juno walked out on him. He doesn’t know how he can possibly not regret every minute of time and every cred spent on Juno Steel. He doesn’t know how even now, this man manages to love him so much more than he can ever hope to deserve.

He doesn’t know a lot, but he does know that he can’t let Peter Nureyev die.

Juno focuses his blaster at the same moment that Ginger pulls his own from his holster and points it at Nureyev’s head.

It’s a difficult shot from this angle. If he’s even a few inches off, he can hit Nureyev and kill him. If Ginger moves and he misses both of them, he likely won’t have time for another shot.

Nureyev’s eyes are closed now, like he’s accepted his death. Almost like he’s _welcoming_ it.

“Mistah Steel,” Rita’s voice says in his ear. “The cameras are down!”

“Good,” he replies, then takes a deep breath.

A red dot of light appears at the center of his vision, and white text scrolls in front of his right eye. For once, though, it serves as more than just a distraction.

_Targeting…._

_Targeting…._

**_Target locked._ **

He takes the shot.

For one terrifying instant he’s certain he’s missed, or that Ginger managed to get his own shot in before his hit. Then Ginger drops his blaster and crumples to the ground and Juno sees Nureyev in the chair behind him, looking breathless and shocked and _alive._

Shitty lungs be damned, Juno is down the maintenance ladder and at Nureyev’s side in an instant. He pushes away Ginger’s unconscious form with a foot and kneels next to him, reaching out a hand to gently cup his face.

“H-hey, Nureyev,” he says shakily. “Hey, baby. Look at me.”

Nureyev’s head lolls against his palm, his dark eyes half clouded over. There’s so much blood dripping from his nose, mouth and hairline. Now that Juno’s closer, he can make out every bruise, every cut, every missing tooth, and he feels sick to his stomach.

Worse than all that, though, is the wound in his shoulder- clearly from a blaster shot. Juno has the sinking suspicion that this is where the blood on the motel wall came from. It’s been patched up, but only superficially, like whoever did it wanted Nureyev alive…but only for a little while.

Juno needs to get him out of here and to a doctor, now.

He activates his comms and says, “Rita, I’ve got him. Call an ambulance to the nearest satellite not owned by Vedas.”

“On it, boss,” she replies instantly.

He’s halfway through untying the rope around Nureyev’s chafed wrists when the man’s eyes finally focus on him and he speaks.

“Ju…no…”

“Yeah. It’s me. I’m here, Nureyev. You’re okay. I’m going to get you out of here,” Juno says, and suddenly there are tears blurring his vision. “You idiot. You fucking idiot. What the hell were you thinking?!”

“You’re…real.”

“Yeah, goddammit. I’m here. I’m real.” He finishes freeing Nureyev’s hands, then takes one of them and places it on his own cheek. He feels the slender fingers tremble against his skin. “I’m really here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Juno says. “What kind of moron buys a goddamn cybernetic eye when they’re already millions in debt? Did you…did you really think I needed that? That I expected you to make that sacrifice for me?”

Nureyev’s hand slips from his cheek. “You weren’t happy. I wanted you to be happy.”

 _“Fuck,”_ Juno chokes out. “You should have told me. I could’ve helped you. This whole time you were fighting tooth and nail just to stay alive, and I didn’t even know.”

“You lied too,” Nureyev says. “You said you wanted to travel with me. That you loved me. Then you left.”

Juno doesn’t know what the noise that leaves his own throat then is- it’s something between a sob and the death cry of a wounded animal. There are a million things he wants to say. _I did want to travel with you. I do love you. That’s not why I walked out._

Instead he finds himself asking, “Why didn’t you?”

Nureyev stares at him, brow furrowed in confusion behind his shattered glasses.

“Why didn’t you leave in the morning like you were planning to?” Juno clarifies. “You knew they were coming. Why did you stay?”

Nureyev is quiet for so long that Juno starts to worry that he’s falling unconscious, but then he says, “I was…tired of it. Tired of all the running. It only seemed worth it when I was running with you.”

“I didn’t even know we _were_ running.”

“Didn’t…want you to. I promised you an adventure. You deserved an adventure, not…not a pursuit. I’m sorry. When I invited you, I never thought you’d get caught up in this. I thought if I worked hard enough, did enough jobs, I could make the payments. Then I thought that even if they chased us, I could just outrun them. I was too cocky. Always…too cocky.”

“You never could have outrun them,” Juno says quietly. “No one could’ve. That wasn’t your fault.”

“What…do you mean?”

Juno draws in a breath through his nose. He doesn’t want to tell him, not now when he’s already so badly injured and distraught, but he knows he has to. “They…they put a tracker on you, Nureyev. It was broadcasting your location the entire time.”

“That’s impossible. I’ve checked every corner of my clothing and jewelry and dismantled my comms; I know better than to let something like that pass me by-”

“Not on your clothes _. Inside_ of you.”

“I…No, that’s…” Nureyev’s eyes widen and his shaky breaths pick up. He clenches the arms of the chair with bloody, trembling hands. _“Where?”_

“I don’t know,” Juno says. It’s true, but even if he did know, he wouldn’t tell Nureyev. He wouldn’t trust the man not to immediately try to rip it out with his bare hands. “I just know it was implanted during a medical checkup one of the corporations did on you.”

“I…Fuck, I remember,” Nureyev says. “I remember that checkup. I…I knew not to trust it, but I assumed that they were doing it as a ruse to get DNA from me, and I thought there…there was nothing they could get from me that wasn’t already in my debtor’s tag…I should’ve…known better…”

His words devolve into violent coughing, and Juno can only hope that the blood that he hacks up with the coughs is from a bitten tongue and not a serious lung injury.

“Hey,” Juno says. “Hey, stop talking. We can have this conversation later. I’m gonna take you back to the shuttle, and then we’re gonna get you to help, and you’ll be okay.” He turns away for a second and activates his comms. “Rita, what’s the ETA on that ambulance?”

“It’s waiting for us at the next satellite over! I already told the pilot that we’re heading there and he plotted a course,” she replies.

“Good. Great. Thank you. Hear that, Nureyev? You’re gonna be…” he trails off as he turns back to Nureyev to find the man slumped over in the chair, body slack and eyes wide and glassy. “Nureyev?!”

When he reaches out to touch to him, the man is totally limp beneath his hands.

“Nureyev, no,” Juno chokes. “H-hey, stay with me. You’ve gotta stay with me.”

He feels for a pulse on his neck and manages to pick up on one, but its faint, and feels like it’s getting fainter by the second. He forces himself to swallow his panic and terror as he pulls Nureyev into his arms and carries him out of the storage building, all the while whispering desperate pleas to his unconscious form.

“Stay with me, Nureyev. You can’t leave me now. You can’t leave before I even have the chance to explain why I walked out on you, or apologize, or tell you how…how much I fucking love you, Nureyev. You _can’t._ You have to survive this.”

He doesn’t let go of his hand during the shuttle ride to the ambulance either, as though by holding on he can capture Nureyev’s life in his palm and prevent it from slipping away.

“Please,” he whispers. _“Please stay.”_


	6. Chapter 6

Juno’s all but nodded off when he hears the sheets rustle slightly.

He immediately bolts upright in his chair as soon as he does, though, and leans over the bed. “H-hey.”

Nureyev’s eyes are half open, looking at him tiredly. “Juno,” he mumbles.

“Welcome back to the land of the living. You probably shouldn’t move around much,” Juno says breathlessly, feeling relief bloom through his entire body. “You’ll survive, but you’re pretty banged up.”

The thief’s eyes trail around the room, then widen as he processes where he is. “I…I can’t be here.”

“Whoa, whoa, no,” Juno says, gently pushing him back down onto the bed before he can struggle upright. “You’re okay. We admitted you under a fake identity, and Rita’s hacked into the security so she can manually wipe all footage of your presence at the hospital as soon as we’re gone. There are no working cameras on us now, either, so don’t worry about watching what you say.”

Nureyev sinks into the pillows, grimacing. “Forgive my…nerves, Juno. The last time a doctor looked me over, it was apparently all a pretense to implant a _tracker_ in me.”

“About that…” Juno reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny metal square. “There’s two important things I need to tell you right now.”

He holds up the square to Nureyev, who stares at it, wide-eyed. “Is that…?”

“Mm. It’s the chip. The doctors had to take it out before Rita could do anything with it, but…it’s officially been nullified. No one can track you anymore. In fact, Rita rewrote its data to broadcast your current location as being on Venus.”

Nureyev’s shoulders sag as though the weight of the universe has been taken off of them. “That’s…Well. I don’t think I have the capacity to express what a relief that is, at present,” he says. “It’s hard to believe that something so small was capable of doing so much damage to my life. Can I look at it?”

He reaches out to take the chip, but then pauses, staring down at his right hand. The wrist is bandaged and his fingers are shuddering, much more than they even had from the damage by Miasma’s electrocutions.

“Juno, I can’t feel my hand,” he says.

His voice is carefully calm, but Juno can still hear the fear underneath it. He swallows. “That’s the second important thing I have to tell you,” he says slowly. “They…they had to remove the chip immediately, or else Vedas would be able to find you again and kill you. We couldn’t wait for you to wake up to ask your permission.”

“It was in my wrist,” Nureyev realizes.

Juno nods. “The doctors said removing it would probably result in severe nerve damage. I…I know it wasn’t my right to make that decision for you, but someone had to, and I assumed…I guessed you’d be willing to take that risk, if it meant getting it out of you. Even if that also meant losing your right hand.”

Nureyev stares at his hand in silence for a long moment before saying, “You guessed correctly.”

“…Oh, thank fuck.”

He lets it drop to his side with a sigh. “I always knew that if I was ever going to get out of this, it wouldn’t be without consequences. This is it, I suppose. The cost of my freedom. If anything, it seems too small. Though I suppose I also lost something much more important.”

“…You did?”

“I lost you.”

Juno’s heart sinks. “Nureyev, I need you to know that I didn’t walk out that night because of you, or anything you did. I left because of me, and I think…I think I was always going to. From the second I agreed to come with you,” he says. “I was so sure that I could never deserve you. I looked at you and I saw this…perfect, untouchable person, and I knew I could never be good enough.”

Nureyev rasps out a wry laugh. “If that’s really what you thought of me, this ordeal must have been quite the wakeup call.”

“It was,” Juno admits. “Not necessarily in a bad way, though. I mean, you are a huge idiot and a total mess, obviously-”

“Thank you.”

“- but I guess that was almost…a relief? I mean, not any of what you’ve been through with your debt. That’s all…fuck. It’s so horrifying that it makes me feel physically ill. But the point is, it was a relief to find out you’re _human_. Like me. Hell, you’re a lot more like me than I ever realized.”

“From my perspective, that feels like too high a compliment,” Nureyev says with a weak smile. “Knowing your opinion of yourself, though, I assume I should take it as an insult.”

Juno snorts. “It’s neither really. It’s just…true,” he says. “When I found out what was going on with you, I was…hurt, and angry, and…and terrified. I was upset that you lied to me, and even more upset that you were willing to put yourself in so much danger just to make me feel a little better.”

Nureyev’s face crumples. “Juno, I’m so-”

“Don’t. You already apologized. What I’m trying to say is…I felt all those things, and then I realized…I’d done the exact same thing to you. I’ve been doing the exact same thing to everyone in my life, ever since I was a goddamn kid,” Juno says. “Lying to them so they don’t have to worry. Endangering myself to help other people. Hell, that’s practically my MO.”

“Juno…”

“You told me you could get this eye for me no problem, and yeah, that was a lie. But when I told you I’d be right behind you when you ran out of that room with Miasma, that was a lie, too. Sure, you were an idiot, and you scared the shit out of me…but I was an idiot and I scared the shit out of you, too. God, I still hear you pounding on that door in my dreams.” Juno grimaces and closes his eyes. “I think…I think it took being on the other side of that to make me realize just how little I wanna be person anymore. I don’t wanna keep throwing myself to the goddamn wolves just to make someone else happy, and I don’t want you to keep doing it either.”

“I didn’t make you happy, though. I couldn’t manage even that much,” Nureyev says quietly. “I thought…Juno, believe me when I say that I thought I was helping.”

“I know.” Juno reaches out and takes his hand, squeezing it. “That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? You never asked what I really wanted or…needed help with. And I didn’t ask you either. We traveled together for eight months and we barely even _talked,_ not about what actually mattered. You should’ve told me about your debt, and I should have told you about my…my depression, and how it affects me. There were a lot of things we should’ve done.”

“I…don’t know if I can ever make up for all of this.”

“Maybe you can’t. Maybe I can’t either. But…it happened, and it’s done, so now…we just have to move forward, right? That’s all we can do. You’re free now, Nureyev. God, you deserved to be free a lot sooner, and I can’t even imagine what it must have been like, having to work for companies like Vedas all these years and knowing your life was in the hands of some heartless corporate bigshot, but…you’re _free.”_

“All thanks to you, Juno.”

There are tears shining in Nureyev’s dark eyes. He grasps Juno’s hand and leans forward, and suddenly they’re so close that Juno can see every pore on his face, every beautiful imperfection, every bruise and half-healed cut left by that Vedas bastard, and he wants nothing more than to-

“Heya, Mistah Steel, I just wanted to let you know that I completed the scan of Oldtown, and it looks like the bots are being implemented in at least a dozen- _OH!_ Mistah Nureyev, you’re awake!”

Nureyev and Juno jolt apart, and Juno has to stifle a laugh as he watches Nureyev’s face go from openly shocked by Rita’s sudden entrance to a carefully arranged imitation of nonchalance.

“Ah. Miss Rita,” he says, making a vain attempt to smooth his hair with his left hand. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

“It wasn’t all thanks to me, Nureyev,” Juno says with a smile. “I think you’ve got something to say to Rita, too. She’s the one that was able to track you down when Vedas kidnapped you, and she’s the reason they can’t find you now.”

“Of course,” Nureyev says, meeting her eyes before giving her a slight bow. “I cannot possibly thank you enough, my dear. From what Juno’s told me about your achievements…you must be nothing short of a genius. A miracle worker, even.”

“Little ole me? Well, yeah, you’re probably right!” Rita beams. “I’m just happy you’re okay, Mistah Nureyev. Mistah Steel was so worried about you. Sounds like you did some real silly stuff without telling him, but at least you’re in the clear now, and you don’t gotta do anything silly anymore, right?”

“Er…right,” Nureyev says, then frowns. “What was that you were saying about…bots?”

Rita’s eyes flick between Juno and Nureyev and she shuffles back a couple of feet, looking unsure. “It’s just somethin’ the boss and I are dealing with right now. I donno whether he wants me to say or not-”

“I’m done with secrets,” Juno says. He takes a deep breath and looks Nureyev in the eye. “While you were out, Rita told me about something that’s happening back in Hyperion City. A new mayor was elected, and he’s implementing some…shady new system using Theia Spectrum cybernetics. We’re trying to find out as much as we can about it.”

“Ah. That…sounds worrisome.”

“Yeah, just a little. We can only do so much from afar, though, so…we’re going to have to go back to Hyperion to figure the rest out,” he continues. “We’ll wait until you’re discharged, of course, but after that…I can’t leave this alone, Nureyev. It’s my hometown. I know that it’s not my responsibility to solve all its problems, but I have to at least try to help.”

Juno can practically see the curtain fall over Nureyev’s face, his bright eyes suddenly dulled by pained resignation, like a patient who knew a terminal diagnosis was coming but has finally had it confirmed for them. “Of course. It only makes sense that you should return.”

“Nureyev, you-”

Nureyev cuts him off, shaking his head. “You should go. I want you to. I…I never should have taken you from that place to begin with, and certainly not in the manner that I did. It’s obvious how much it means to you. I need you to know that I do not resent you for this, not for an instant.”

“Nureyev-”

“Listen to me, Juno. I don’t. And…despite everything that happened, I don’t regret the last eight months that I’ve spent with you, either. I’ll value the time that I had with you, always. My only wish is that I could’ve done more right by you while we were together.”

“Nureyev, if you can shut up for one second, I am _trying_ to ask you if you want to come with us.”

Nureyev blinks. “Oh.”

“Only if you want to, obviously, but…we’d appreciate your help,” Juno says. “Not like you don’t have experience helping me take down megalomaniac assholes, right? And if not…well, I wanna go back there to help with this, but that doesn’t mean I wanna stay forever, or that…I never want to see you again.”

Nureyev looks shocked by this revelation. “You…really wouldn’t mind if I came? Even…after everything?”

“Well, duh,” Juno says. “Look…back when we first left, I really thought…Well, I assumed I had to choose you or Hyperion City. It was travel the stars alone with you and never come back, or stay on Mars and lose you. I’ve been talking a lot with Rita, though, and she pointed out-”

“That it don’t gotta be all or nothing, Mistah Nureyev,” Rita interjects. “Just ‘cause Mistah Steel wasn’t actually ready for your big adventure in the stars when you left, doesn’t mean he won’t ever be, or that he doesn’t like you loads. He totally does, you shoulda seen him when he had to decide about your hand, he was a _mess-”_

Before Juno can object to her sharing this particular bit of personal information, Nureyev interrupts instead.

“Speaking of…” he says. “As much as I would like to accept your offer to come with you and help solve whatever is happening in Hyperion, I’m not certain how much use I would be to you. A thief’s most important tool is his hands, and I…Well. It seems that I’m down one. My dominant hand, no less.”

“The doctor says there’s still a chance you’ll get movement and feeling back with time,” Juno says. “But even if you never do, and even if you didn’t also have a million other skills that don’t require your hand… Nureyev, I’m not asking you to come because I think you’d be _useful._ I’m asking you because I like you and I like being with you. No, more than that. Because I…” He draws in a deep breath. “Because I love you.”

Nureyev stares at him, frozen stock still, before saying, “O-oh.”

“Gonna admit, ‘oh’ is not really the preferred response that,” Juno says good-naturedly.

“Juno, a few weeks ago I told you that I loved you and you said _ditto.”_

“Well, it got the point across, didn’t it?!”

Nureyev laughs. “I…apologies, my dear. I love you too, obviously, I just…I suppose I was surprised to hear you say it. To know that you still feel that way, even now.”

“Of course I do, Nureyev. Pretty sure I couldn’t stop being in love with you if I tried. I love you, and I want to be with you, and I…I want to help you,” Juno says. “The tracker might be out of you now, but that doesn’t mean your problems are over, right? Vedas could still track you down.”

Nureyev nods. “My debtor’s tag has quite a bit of information in it even without the chip. My name, my photo, DNA samples, fingerprints…” he says. “As long as I owe them money, they’ll try to find me.”

“I was just thinking about that,” Rita says suddenly, and they both jump, having temporarily forgotten she was there. “There’s one surefire way we could stop them from ever coming after you again, ain’t there?”

“…Is there?”

 _“We_ could buy your debt.”

The room is silent for a moment, and then Nureyev says, “Rita, dear, you could terraform the land needed for an entire city on Pluto with the cost of my debt. I’m afraid that you most certainly do not have those sort of funds.”

“Well, yeah, duh. We don’t, but other people do. The other places that bought it, for example. If I can figure out some way to sneakily wire money from all those corporations to Vedas…or maybe even wire Vedas’ own money back to them without them realizing…Well, you wouldn’t have to worry no more!”

Nureyev’s mouth is hanging slightly open now. “You…you can do that?”

“Well, not yet, obviously, or I woulda done it already. But if you give me a few months I can probably figure it out.”

“Rita, that…that’s…”

“Amazing, right?” Juno says. “Trust me, Nureyev, my life got a million times better as soon as I learned that I could ask Rita for help.”

“And Mistah Steel still oughta ask more often than he does,” Rita grumbles.

“You’re both willing to do so much for me, and you’ve never even asked _how_ I got my debt,” Nureyev says.

“Does it matter?” Rita and Juno say in unison.

Nureyev looks taken aback. “For all you know, I got it by gambling all my money away to some tyrant-”

Juno rolls his eyes. “No, I don’t know how it happened, Nureyev. But I do know you. I know you’re the kind of person who’d…” He trails off, not wanting to talk about Brahma when Rita’s in the room. “…Who’d put himself even deeper in debt just to get his stupid girlfriend a stupid eye, for one.”

“A stupid eye that I figured out how to fix the settings on, by the way,” Rita chimes in.

“Yeah, and thank god for that,” Juno says. “Point is, Nureyev, whatever happened…I know it could never be bad enough to make me not want to help you or be with you. Understand?”

Nureyev hesitates before nodding. “Yes, I…I believe you.”

“Good. I mean, sure, you can tell me. You probably should, if we’re gonna start doing this whole honesty thing. And hell, there’s a shit ton of things I need to tell you, too, but…that’s just because I want to know you, and I want you to know me. Not because it’s some sort of…test, to see how much of each other’s baggage the other can stand.”

“You know, Juno, I can’t help but think that we’ve been doing this relationship thing wrong this whole time.”

Juno laughs. “Maybe. Thank god we get a second chance then, right?”

“Thank god, indeed.”

“Right now, though…you just focus on getting better, and then we can focus on helping Hyperion City, and then…”

“And then?”

“I donno. We’ll figure it out. No grand plans, though, all right? It doesn’t _have_ to be some big adventure. It just has to be you and me. And Rita, obviously. I’m not making the mistake of leaving her behind again.”

“Oh, Juno,” Nureyev says softly, his expression unbearably fond. “When did you get so good at all this?”

Juno rubs his neck. “Guess staring at the guy you’re in love with lying unconscious in a hospital bed for two days makes you do a lot of self-actualization about what you really want, and where you went wrong.”

 _“Two days?!_ Love, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well, you’re awake now. That’s what matters.” Juno leans over and presses a gentle kiss to Nureyev’s lips, careful not to irritate the still-healing cuts and scrapes surrounding them. “Now…how about we get started on that second chance?”

Nureyev grins. “I think I’d like that very much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good for them.jpeg
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!!! Now go imagine them having a grand, dramatic time taking down Ramses together. Whoooo. Oh, and Merry Christmas. This one was a tough write, but it felt really worth it in the end. Best gift you could possibly give me for the holiday is to throw a kudos and/or comment my way <3 Seriously, they mean the world.
> 
> Oh, and you can follow me on twitter @prydonn or tumblr at @prydon.


End file.
